Modern Psalms: All the Gratitude We Have to Give

“I will praise the name of God with song and magnify Him with thanksgiving.” (Psalm 69:30, AMP)

Dear Lord,

We have so many things to be thankful for that we often don’t reflect on. So many things that it doesn’t even occur to us to be grateful for, but all things that God has given us, and all equally deserving to give Him praise for.

For our homes– the very fact that we have one. Whether we rent, or pay a mortgage, or live with our parents. Thank you, God, for allowing us a space somewhere in this world where we can be safe; that we can make our own. Thank you for a place to go every day, when our work is done, that we can rest and find peace in. Thank you for all the creature comforts of that home: the running water, the microwave, the comfy couch, the clean sheets, and the lights that come on when we flip the switch. That home is a reflection of us, so we thank you for the safety of that dwelling place, and the privilege to make it ours. 

Thank you for the family that fills that home, either the family we were born to or the one we’ve gathered along the way– both something that you have made and sovereignly given. Thank you that you have given us family ties and bonds that run so close. Thank you that we don’t have to be alone. Thank you that we have people that want the best for us, people that support us, root for us, celebrate our victories, and mourn our losses. You are gracious to us that we can have this web of relationships that we can lean on, from those who raised us to those who you’ve given us to parent; from siblings and cousins, to grandparents and friends that might as well be family.

Thank you for the other people in our lives: friends, coworkers, our pastor, the babysitter, the postal worker that comes to our house everyday. Thank you that we live in community with others. You have made every single person we come in contact with. You have made and ordained everything, and no one falls out of your hand.

Thank you for the lives you’ve given us. We praise you for every good day. We praise you for every hardship. You have been with us through all of it. You have orchestrated it all in order to teach, refine, strengthen, comfort, and encourage us. You love us so deeply and completely that you would use our unbelief, our ugliness, our imperfection, our fallen nature, to work it all together for good, both a good that pleases and delights you and a good that is best for your people. You can use our illnesses, our character flaws, our tragedies, our broken and dark world to sovereignly carry out your will. Nothing can thwart your goodness. Nothing can usurp your love for your people. Nothing can steal the joy you pour out on your Church. 

So even when we’re struggling, and we don’t know how on earth our stinking issues can possibly be made good, or how our weaknesses can be used to give you glory, you do it. It’s just who you are, and a million songs, a million prayers– endless worship to your name– could never even begin to cover the wonder and awe you deserve.

Thank you for your world and the beauty you created in it. Thank you for the awesome dignity of the mountains, the humbling power of the oceans, the tender loveliness of a forest. Thank you for the fondness we have for our favorite corners of your creation. Thank you for hidden beaches, roaring rivers, thundering waterfalls, unforgiving deserts, rainforests, and savannahs. Thank you for this diverse world you’ve made and how you speak to us through its beauty.

Thank you for your Church. Thank you that you give us a place we can go to learn more about you, a place where we can be with other like-minded Christians that seek you and encourage us to seek you too. Thank you that we live in a country that was founded on allowing your Church to be protected– that we don’t have to meet in secret or worry about what might happen if people knew we followed you. You have given us such freedom to praise you and practice your righteousness. It is not lost on us that not everyone in this world can say that, and so we worship you with deep gratitude to be able to seek your Truth, tell others about your Gospel, and follow you loudly.

Your Word is a deep grace to us. To have your words and your scriptures freely available to read and study. To live in a day and age where there are so many resources to help us interpret that Word and plant it deep in our hearts– that we might truly know it, apply it, and be changed by it. We thank you that you don’t keep moving the line of that Truth on us. That it is readily accessible and steadfast. 

Thank you–truly– for your salvation. Thank you that you went to a cross to die for us– that you shed your blood and loved us so deeply that you made a way for our sin to be washed away. Thank you for choosing us to enjoy that salvation; for empowering us by your Holy Spirit to believe and be changed by it. Thank you for going as far as you could go to bring us back to you. Thank you for never giving up on us and for your resurrection. Thank you for showing your might, power, and deity so completely.

We serve a God who loves us so thoroughly. Without you, we’d be hopeless and lost. We’d be afraid and helpless to whatever might happen.

But you are a God who could never be matched or beaten. You are holy and awesome. We thank you for absolutely everything you’ve given, big and small. It’s not something we deserve– none of it is. 

So there is nothing really to say beyond that you are wholly and completely God. You alone are Yahweh. You alone are Savior. Thank you for even having the time of day for us, for creating us, let alone saving us.

You deserve all the gratitude we have to give.

Thank you. Help us to live in that gratefulness more and more, eyes wide open to all the ways you’re working and loving us.

Talk later,
Cortney